TQL Urban Challenge

About 3,000 people are expected to participate in the inaugural TQL Urban Challenge. TQL is working with officials from the Flying Pig Marathon to plan and execute the new race, which will test participants’ overall strength and stamina as they encounter 12 obstacles on the way to finishing. Registration has been extended until Thursday at 5 p.m. Walk-up registration allowed on race day if the race has not reached capacity. • Registration cost: $85 prior to 5 p.m. Thursday; $95 day of race. • When: Saturday. • Location: Washington Park, Over-the-Rhine. • First race: 10 a.m. Heats follow every 15 minutes. • To register and for more information:www.tqlurbanrace.com/information.

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Total Quality Logistics is only 16 years old, but its leadership team has been together for almost 40.

Which may be why TQL credits traditional notions of friendship, loyalty, teamwork and trust for its success as one of the nation’s largest truck brokerage firms with annual sales topping $1 billion.

The company’s DNA can be traced back to Anderson Township, where relationships were forged through sports at Guardian Angels School and McNicholas High School.

Four of the five played football together. All five know each other’s families and stayed close as they started their professional careers.

Their belief in teamwork and athletics continues today and has spread into the community. Next Saturday, downtown Cincinnati will see its first TQL Urban Race – where competitors will climb over a semi-trailer, hurdle cement barricades, haul pallets and confront nine other obstacles.

Proceeds will benefit the Marvin Lewis Community Fund and Reds Community Fund.

TQL also sponsors the Skyline Chili Women’s Crosstown Classic. And last year, it made a donation to help upgrade athletic facilities at McNicholas High School.

Internally, it’s not unusual for the company to interview former college athletes when it’s hiring, said high school quarterback Byrne.

Whether the candidate actually played is irrelevant; in fact, Byrne said somebody who was on a team for four years and never played is even more likely to be a good fit at TQL.

“That tells me something about that person,” Byrne says.

Combination of business, friendship spells success

In some cases, combining business and friendship can mean the end for both. For TQL, the result is one of the biggest startup successes this region has seen in recent years.

TQL, headquartered in Clermont County, has five offices in the region and another 19 across the country. It employs 1,500 locally, 2,300 nationally.

It’s the country’s second-biggest truck brokerage by revenue, according to Transport Topics magazine. It doesn’t own trucks or warehouses but matches shippers and trucking companies all over the United States.

TQL was third in the most recent Deloitte 100 survey of largest privately held companies in the region. It earned $1.38 billion in 2012.

Oaks said TQL doesn’t have a board of advisers, which is unusual for a company of its size. Instead, he largely relies on a management team bonded by its history together. Working with friends hasn’t impeded the open communication all organizations need to thrive, and at TQL, it may help facilitate frank feedback.

For example, shortly after starting TQL in 1997, Oaks moved to bring Montelisciani in as the company’s fourth employee. Oaks thought he nailed the pitch to his friend, who was initially receptive. Then, silence.

It ultimately took a second interview for TQL to land Montelisciani. It turns out Montelisciani’s wife, who had just had the couple’s first child, had a few questions for Oaks.

“She went through the financials, she grilled me,” Oaks said. “Finally he came aboard.”

When Oaks needed a line of credit, he wrote a business plan and took it to Byrne, then a vice president and manager for Fifth Third Bank’s Private Client Group.

“I thought I put together a pretty awesome business plan,” Oaks said. “Kerry looked at it and basically asked if he could rewrite it.”

Trust is the cornerstone of TQL's progress

Montelisciani and his wife took a chance on Oaks, and Oaks leaned on Byrne, who joined the company in 2005. It’s that kind of trust that has been the cornerstone of TQL’s success.

Oaks said he had a network of customers who said they would use TQL’s service once the company was established. None actually did. So TQL’s initial customers were shippers who found themselves in last-minute jams and needed help. The company had no room for error.

“We had to deliver,” Oaks said. “There were no do-overs.”

That mentality continues at TQL. On the back of each TQL employee’s business cards are four pledges, starting with promising customers access to the company 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

Top account executives can make around $300,000 annually with salary and commissions, but the jobs aren’t for everyone, which is why TQL screens for certain attributes in its hiring process and uses an intensive training process for new employees.

There are other ways to prove you’re a team player. TQL actively recruits and hires veterans.

“Veterans are attractive because of their discipline, and the fact that they’ve probably been in tougher situations,” Oaks said. “They don’t get fazed.”

Neither, Oaks says, do the guys he grew up with.

“They’re the people I trust the most,” he said. ⬛

I will give you a new perspective on local executives and the region's entrepreneurs – and why both matter to you. Find me at LinkedIn, Facebook and jpichler@enquirer.com.